46 This year, as you know, on March 15, is the fourth centenary of the divine call of St. Francis Xavier to the sacred missions of India in Portuguese territory. He learned of his call from a letter which John III, King of Portugal, sent to Rome to his legate requesting good, virtuous missionaries for the regions of India. Beyond all doubt it may be said that the saint, the patron of sacred missions, repaid your nation with most generous interest for the splendid assistance which helped this apostolic man to respond freely and gladly to his divine call. He could have done nothing greater for the good of Portugal if he had been born in your country. You see how great and how beneficent the virtue of purity is. From it We hope for happy results also for your projects. Therefore what St. Francis Xavier, Blessed John de Brito, and the other apostolic men of your nation took for themselves as the purpose and end of their sacred missions to the great profit of religion and the nation of Portugal, We may express in these words of the divine Master: "And for them I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
Source: Saeculo Exeunte Octavo (Vatican.va)